Archive for the ‘State’ Category

Over the past few weeks on the show, Ren has discussed the T-SPLOST referendum on the upcoming July 31st ballot in great detail. To state it simply: the proposed Transportation – Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax is a terrible idea.

I don’t see how this can be better illustrated than by the fact that, in the Atlanta area at least, the Atlanta Regional Commission has admitted that with the proposed projects “the average commute time really doesn’t change a lot.” Compound that with the fact that the Georgia DOT has had 4 straight years of “scathing” audit reports regarding woeful mismanagement of their existing funds, and you come to the laughable-if-it-wasn’t-so-tragic conclusion that we’re being asked to vote ourselves a tax increase so that incompetent bureaucrats can spend our money on traffic projects that won’t solve our traffic problems. Or, for the same results, we might all just get together and start a big bonfire with our money.

I’ve seen several videos describing why the projects for Atlanta are foolish in the extreme, and I’ll link to a few of those below. Some of these videos, however, seem to think that the biggest problem of the T-SPLOST is with the project list, and that we should vote No this year so that the politicians and bureaucrats will come back with a better list next year. That is not the biggest problem with the T-SPLOST.

The biggest problem with the T-SPLOST is that it taxes all of us by increasing the price of everything we buy. This at a time when prices are already rising due to the sagging economy, when Georgia has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and thus when Georgians can least afford a tax increase. If there can ever be a good time to raise taxes across the board, surely this is not that time.

The proponents say it’s not much of an increase, just a penny. But, as Ren has pointed out, it’s not just a penny. It’s a penny on every single dollar you spend. It’s an increase of 14% over the existing sales tax in our region, and it affects absolutely everyone, whether they can afford it or not. You are taxed whether you are rich or poor, whether you will ever make use of these projects or not.

In summary, Georgia voters are being asked to hand over more of their hard-earned money to politicians and unelected bureaucrats who have badly mismanaged the state’s transportation systems for years, and these officials are, in effect, promising to take our money and, in return, not fix the problems to any noticeable degree. Is it any wonder they’re having to spend so much on advertising to sell this thing?

Please vote NO on the T-SPLOST referendum. Surely you can think of better ways to spend your money.